Christmas Wishes, Midnight Kisses
by lilacsigil
Summary: Schoolgirl Christmas fluff featuring Lily Evans and Alice WithNoMaidenName Longbottom. Guest starring Narcissa Black.


Christmas Wishes, Midnight Kisses 

"What are you doing here at Christmas, sweetie?" Alice asked the little second-year sitting alone at the huge, empty Gryffindor dining table. There were only a few students left at school this morning, and none of them looked happy to be there. Even the Black sisters over at the Slytherin table looked sulkier than usual.

"My sister said if I came home and did anything weird she'd throttle me. I always do weird stuff, so it was easier just to stay here," muttered the Gryffindor girl.

"I'm sure she wouldn't really do that. She can't use magic in the holidays either." Alice sat down beside the girl and hoed into her delicious honeyed porridge.

"No, my sister's a muggle. She could definitely do it," the girl said, her green eyes wide and serious.

"Well, in that case, it's good you're safe at Hogwarts. Can't have you strangled by a muggle."

"She's not so bad, usually, she's nicer than a lot of the witches I know." The girl put her spoon down firmly on the table, ready to argue her point.

Alice just smiled back.

"If she's usually so nice, what's different about this Christmas? I'm Alice, by the way."

"I know! You're a prefect! I'm Lily. Lily Evans."

Lily picked up her spoon and renewed her attack on the porridge, apparently satisfied that Alice wasn't casting slurs on the muggleborns.

"I know what's different – she's got a boyfriend, that's what."

"Lucky her." Alice added an eyeroll to her sarcasm.

"I know! Who even likes boys? They're loud and stupid and follow you around. Petunia didn't like boys last year." Lily sighed heavily. "But now Nigel Pitt is the best thing since sliced bread and Petunia made me tell Mum and Dad I had to stay and school and study."

"Well, if she marries him, she's going to be Petunia Pitt."

Lily giggled.

"If they have a baby they can call it Bottomless."

Alice laughed, too, then scraped out the last morsels of porridge and looked hungrily into her bowl.

"Well, it won't be the only one. Want some toast?"

As the only two Gryffindor girls left at Hogwarts for the holidays, Lily and Alice found it easy to spend time together. In the strict hierarchy of term time, the three year difference would have proved an insurmountable difference, but this was Christmas Eve, and the empty commonroom was theirs.

Alice sat in one of the squashy maroon armchairs, with Lily crosslegged on the rug in front of her, leaning on Alice's legs. Alice tapped her wand gently on Lily's head,

"Capillitexa!"

Lily's thick, red hair swiftly twisted itself into a neat plait.

"Ooh! That didn't hurt at all!"

"I said it wouldn't. Have a little faith!"

Lily patted her smooth plait with great satisfaction.

"Oh, I didn't think you'd hurt me, Alice. But my mum always has to pull really hard when she plaits my hair, or it all just comes out again."

"Capillilaxa!"

Lily's hair slid from its smooth confines, and fell loosely around her face again.

"Now you try it, Lily. Capillitexa, remember?"

Lily scrunched up her face in concentration and tapped herself on the crown of her head.

"Capillitexa!"

Her hair wriggled for a moment, then pulled itself into a bunchy plait, looser than Alice's, but still definitely holding together.

"Well done!" Alice clapped her hands together and tucked her wand back in her belt.

Lily bounded up from the floor, tendrils of hair already starting to escape, and wriggled into the armchair beside Alice.

"I'm glad I stayed at Hogwarts, now. It's much more fun being here with you than being at home with Petunia locking me in my room."

"Is she really that mean?"

"Just since my Hogwarts letter came. Before that she was really worried about me. Now … I think she thinks I don't need her any more."

Alice put her arm around Lily, and Lily snuggled into Alice's side.

"Don't worry, sweetie. She's probably just feeling left out. I have an auntie who's a Squib, and my mum said it was really hard when everyone else got to go to Hogwarts but her."

"What happened to her?" Lily asked anxiously, looking up at Alice.

"She apprenticed to a Muggle animal healer, and now she breeds Kneazles. She promised me one for my seventeenth birthday."

"Lucky you! They're beautiful!" Lily patted Alice's knee absently, as if she were stroking one of the cat-like creatures. "Alice, do you think your aunt still feels left out?"

"I don't know, really. She doesn't make a fuss or anything, but it must be weird not to be able to do spells, not even basic ones. She has to drive to our house in a car when she comes down for Christmas.

"Cars are warmer than broomsticks!"

"I just mean there's a lot of little things we take for granted that she can't do. Like we have to be careful when we put out the Christmas crackers to make sure she gets one that will work for her, not one that needs a wand."

"But if you'd lived your whole life as a muggle, like my sister, I mean, that wouldn't be the same at all. Our Christmas crackers aren't going to jump around the table and shoot stars at the roof no matter who you are. And Petunia would hate some things here, like not being able to bring her radio."

"Radios work here, don't they?"

"A transistor radio doesn't. It's a little thing one you can carry around with you, and it runs on batteries. Petunia loves hers."

"Oh, batteries." Alice really didn't know what a battery was, but she knew muggles used batteries as some kind of magic substitute to make their cars and toys move about.

Lily giggled, having had this kind of response from other students of Alice's background.

"Don't sound so alarmed, Alice! I don't think batteries are taking over the world any time soon. And they certainly can't do my hair."

"Neither can you, yet!" Alice poked her finger into Lily's rapidly collapsing plait, and it immediately undid itself.

The two girls burst out laughing, happily cuddled together in the big armchair, quite content to be the only Gryffindors around.

Later that afternoon, Lily was far from cheerful. She was sitting on the floor of the common room, crying monotonously, as she held a silk stocking in her hand.

"Reparo!" she commanded, flicking her wand at the stocking, to no avail. "R-reparo!"

"It's not going to repair while you have your thumb through the hole, Lily," said Alice, dropping down next to her.

"It won't repair at all! I've tried a hundred times!" Lily shoved the stocking into Alice's hand in desperation. "Look!"

The moment Alice took the delicate stocking, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"This isn't your stocking, is it? Yours are wool."

"No, it's Narcissa Black's."

"Why on earth are you trying to mend that little minx's stocking?"

"I was just going to the library and I ran into her, actually ran into her, because I wasn't looking out for anyone. And I knocked her down, and she tore her stocking, and it's some kind of special stocking enchanted to keep her feet warm, and it's her Christmas present! And she said if I didn't fix it she'd get her big sister to hex me straight into the lake! Through the ice! With the squid!" Lily finished dramatically, and blew her nose into her sodden hanky.

"Well, her oldest sister Bellatrix left last year, so I don't think you're really going into the lake. Andromeda's not that crazy." Alice handed Lily her own hanky, and Lily loudly blew her nose again.

"Really? I heard they all despise muggleborns." Lily was already calming down, seeing that Alice wasn't panicking.

"Well, they do, but Andromeda and Narcissa are mostly full of hot air. And Narcissa's probably just cross because her parents are off in Turin for Christmas again and never bother to take her."

"I wouldn't take her, either," said Lily, drying her eyes on the corner of Alice's hanky. "She'd ruin everyone's fun."

Alice peered at the stocking.

"She's right, though. It is enchanted, so reparo alone isn't going to pull it back together. The warming charm must be damaged."

"We studied Warming Charms a few weeks ago! Maybe that will help?"

"If we work out the kind of charm used, we can probably fix it in a jiff. And maybe add in an extra Christmas surprise for Narcissa."

Lily giggled, and Alice smirked, then took the stocking over to one of the study tables, smoothing it out.

"Specialis Revelio," said Alice firmly, tapping her wand lightly on the stocking. It glowed momentarily, except for a dark patch around the tattered knee. As the glow receded, left a tracing of light along the fine fabric, which Alice bent close to read.

"You're right, Lily. It's just a basic warming charm, keyed to operate when someone puts the stocking on. If we recast the charm, the silk should stop resisting reparo."

Lily dashed upstairs to her dormitory and returned with her Charms textbook, flicking quickly through the pages until she found the chapter on various warming charms.

"Here we are, Alice!" Lily frowned, focussed, and waved her wand in a tight circle over the stocking. "Fervescino!"

The two girls grinned as a line of pale flames leapt from Lily's wand and sank softly into the pale silk.

"Reparo!"

The stocking wriggled slightly and the shredded fibres flowed neatly back into each other. It was in perfect condition. Alice slid her hand carefully into the stocking and was delighted to feel it warm her hand.

"Perfect! Narcissa will have nothing to complain about. For once."

"Unless we give her something to complain about." Lily turned a handful of pages in her textbook, and found what she was looking for.

After a relatively plain dinner on Christmas Eve, leaving room for tomorrow's banquet, Lily ventured over to to Slytherin table, Narcissa's stocking in hand. The girl in question was sitting with her sister Andromeda, and another girl who had once pinched Lily's arm hard enough to leave a double bruise in the shape of a butterfly.

Lily humbly passed the stocking across the broad table to Narcissa.

"I'm pleased to see you make an effort," Narcissa said in her haughtiest voice, examining the stocking closely, unable to find a flaw.

Lily turned to go back to the Gryffindor table, where Alice was sitting, but Narcissa swiftly grabbed her wrist.

"Wait. Put it on me."

Lily stared at her, open-mouthed, but Narcissa was serious.

"Put the stocking on my leg."

Lily glanced over at Alice, who was equally surprised, but waved encouragingly. Lily swallowed her immediate reaction, which was to punch Narcissa in the nose, and nodded.

Narcissa let go of Lily's wrist and sat down again, extending her leg imperiously, as the other two Slytherin girls clustered behind her. A quick tap with her wand, and her stocking – which was exactly the same as the supposedly precious one Lily had mended – rolled down her leg. Narcissa slipped off her shoe and stocking, and pointed her polished toenails at Lily.

"Here," she said, wafting the mended stocking at Lily, "Do something useful."

Lily bent her head to hide her smirk and carefully rolled the stocking onto Narcissa's pale leg, feeling it begin to gently warm as it went up. Narcissa wriggled her toes in delight, and Lily quickly backed away, scurrying back towards the Gryffindor table.

Alice patted the bench beside her, and Lily dropped herself onto it, grabbing Alice's hand.

"She's wearing it!" Lily gasped, stuffing a sugar elf in her mouth, "I thought she'd take it back to her dorm!"

"Don't worry, she'll be too embarrassed to turn you in," muttered Alice, her gaze fixed on the Slytherin table, where Narcissa was preening for the benefit of her bored sister and enraptured friend. Seeing Narcissa bend down and absently scratch her leg, Alice took Lily by the arm and sidled towards the door. Six of the teachers were still in the hall, and Alice didn't fancy a Christmas detention.

The two Gryffindor girls stopped at the door, though, peering back at Narcissa and stifling premature giggles. Narcissa scratched her leg again, then a few more times, and finally looked down.

Her leg was entirely covered with coarse white fur, poking bristles through her stocking.

Narcissa's shriek echoed through the stone corridors as Alice and Lily fled, laughing and gasping for breath. They ran together, all the way back to the Gryffindor commonroom. They stopped, gave the password, and tumbled through the portrait onto a rug.

"Did you see her? Did you see her?" Lily yelled, right in Alice's ear.

"Her precious little feet will be warm now!" Alice shouted back, laughing so hard that tears were spilling down her cheeks.

The two girls howled with laughter, holding each other and rolling on the rug in front of the crackling fire. They thumped each other on the back until they were wheezing, but still couldn't stop laughing.

Quite suddenly, Lily leant forward and kissed Alice on the lips.

Alice sat up, startled, and Lily's eyes went wide.

"Sorry, Alice, I didn't mean it, but I really like you, and you helped me but I know you're a prefect, and –"

Alice smiled, and pulled Lily back to her, determined to hold on to their own special Christmas. When was term time ever so sweet?

Alice kissed Lily firmly and with love.

"Merry Christmas, sweetie."


End file.
